Stephen Lendman

In 2011, Chávez suggested Washington's responsibility for a "very strange" bout of cancer. It affected Latin American leaders. Argentina’s Cristina Fernández de Kirchner 's thyroid cancer was confirmed. Former Brazilian President Lula Da Silva had throat cancer. Current President Dilma Rousseff battled axillar lymphoma. Others affected included Colombia's Juan Manuel Santos (prostate cancer), and Paraguay's Fernando Lugo (lymphatic cancer). Last June, Washington's dirty hands ousted him. A parliamentary coup replaced him. America targets all independent leaders.

Venezuelans mourn. Chavismo lives! Bolivarianism is institutionalized. Venezuelans expect no less. They want no part of their ugly past. They'll put their bodies on the line to prevent it. They did before. They'll do it again. Bolivarianism is policy. It's vital to preserve. It's polar opposite neoliberal harshness. America and Venezuela are constitutional worlds apart. More on that below.

On March 5, word came at 4:45PM. Vice President Nicolás Maduro announced it.

"We have just received the most tragic and awful information," he said. Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías died. "It's a moment of deep pain." "Those who die for life can't be called dead," he said.

Supporters massed in Plaza Bolívar. It's Caracas' main square.

"Chávez vive, la lucha sigue," they chanted. "Chávez lives, the battle continues." "The people united will never be defeated." Oligarchs "will never return" to the Miraflores Palace.

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Bill Van Auken

After 14 years in power as Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, a former military officer and left nationalist, died in a military hospital in Caracas Tuesday afternoon following a two-year battle with cancer.

Chávez, who was 58, came to national prominence as the leader of an abortive military coup against the corrupt regime of Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez, the leader of Accion Democratica, a social democratic bourgeois party. Andrés Pérez was responsible for the bloody repression of the “Caracazo”—a popular uprising against IMF-dictated austerity measures in which up to 3,000 were killed.

Freed after two years of imprisonment, Chávez founded his “Bolivarian” movement and ran for president in 1998, claiming that he represented “neither the left nor the right,” but was committed to a program of social and economic reform and an end to the corrupt two-party system that had traded power over previous decades between Accion Democratica and the Christian Democratic Copei party.

After gaining power, he began espousing a left populist political platform, identifying himself as both a nationalist and “socialist.”

Chávez earned the implacable hostility of Washington with his populist and nationalist politics. This included clashes with US-based energy conglomerates sparked by his assertion of greater national control over the exploitation of the country’s petroleum resources, his partial nationalizations, his economic backing for Cuba, and his pursuit of closer economic ties with US imperialism’s rival, China.

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Jake Dean & Justin Jones

Homelessness in the city of San Diego has reached epidemic proportions. The city ranks third in the nation, after New York and Los Angeles, in terms of its overall homeless population. According to recent estimates, some 10,000 homeless reside in the city of 1.3 million. This number most likely under-reports the problem, as the homeless population is very difficult to track.

Mayor Bob Filner, along with the San Diego city council, announced plans to end homelessness in the city in the next four years. “We’re going to look at the homeless literally directly in the face when I’m mayor,” Filner said. “Frankly, I want to be the first city in the country that eliminates homelessness.” However, the mayor has not released any specific proposals on how the city might accomplish these goals.

Earlier attempts by the city to completely end homelessness have already failed. In 2006, the city devised the “Plan to End Chronic Homelessness,” which included building 2,000 new housing units for the most severe cases by the end of 2012. People are considered chronically homeless if they have been homeless for a year or have been so at least four times in the past three months. This plan was only designed for a portion of the total homeless population, and as the deadline passed, chronic homelessness remained a major problem in San Diego.

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